No fair, say Uber drivers slapped with SFO tickets

Uber driver Mustafa Ayubi waits in the San Francisco International Airport ride-hail lot with his car, which displays an Uber decal.

Photo: Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

It happens over and over, he says. Uber emails him about a ticket he received from SFO for a violation, such as not displaying the Uber logo. The $100 fine, a big chunk of his daily earnings, is subtracted from his wages with no way to appeal.

That’s the situation reported by Mustafa Ayubi of San Ramon — and plenty of other Uber drivers.

San Francisco International Airport requires Uber and Lyft to pay any traffic tickets incurred by their drivers, relieving the airport of the hassle of tracking down payments and guaranteeing it will get the money. Lyft covers the cost of tickets. Uber pays the tickets and deducts them from drivers’ earnings. Many drivers say that deprives them of due process. Often they don’t even know about the ticket until they’re notified several months later.

“You can’t do anything; you can’t fight back,” said Ayuba, who drives 10 to 12 hours a day to support his wife and three children. He’s been slapped with $100 airport fines three times for lacking “trade dress” (a legal term for the distinctive physical appearance of a commercial brand) even though he said he has Uber’s vinyl decals on his Toyota Camry’s front and back windshields, plus his Uber SFO permit in the front.

He tried to appeal. He went to Uber’s Greenlight Hub in Daly City, a kind of Apple Genius Bar for drivers. “They said the only way to protest is to say you were not using the Uber app,” he said. “That would mean I have to lie. I won’t do that.”

The money adds up. SFO billed Uber and Lyft $1.74 million in administrative fines last year for 16,617 violations by drivers, largely for lacking trade dress, not displaying an SFO placard, or parking outside designated ride-hailing lots. Of those, 10,026 were for Uber drivers, 6,576 for Lyft and 15 for Wingz, a service that exclusively provides airport rides.

SFO said the system makes sense, because Uber and Lyft have operating permits from the airport and are therefore responsible for ensuring that drivers play by the rules. It said the companies must initiate any appeals.

“Issuing fines to (Uber and Lyft) increases compliance and gives them an incentive to correct behavior,” SFO spokesman Doug Yakel said in an email.

Mustafa Ayubi say he has been cited for not having proper identification on his car, which carries the Uber decal and an airport permit.

Photo: Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

SFO used to issue lots of tickets for drivers who waited in the public cell phone lot, instead of the designated ride-hail lot, for example. Uber and Lyft responded by blocking drivers from receiving ride requests in that lot, which squelched the behavior. That was “a good resolution that would not have been possible if the companies were not in touch with the source of infractions,” Yakel said.

SFO’s ground transportation compliance officers and San Francisco police can spot Uber and Lyft cars, even without decals, thanks to an app SFO developed and shares with other airports that lets officers check license plates to see if the cars are registered with Uber or Lyft.

But many drivers say the practice smacks of a setup, with them as the patsies.

“It’s a collusive arrangement,” said Zakhary Mallett, a former Bay Area Uber driver and former BART District 7 representative, who received SFO tickets for lacking trade dress and parking in the wrong location. He received a notice in July about something that happened in April. “It’s a way for (SFO) to easily get revenue.”

“With parking violations, you’re supposed to have an administrative hearing and be able to escalate to the courts if you want,” Mallett said. “They are voiding the opportunity to protest. It’s a constitutional question; I’m being violated of my due rights.” He’s considering finding an attorney to sue over the issue. Most Uber drivers have agreed to mandatory arbitration, which means any disputes must be settled individually, but a suit against SFO and the city could be done as a class action.

Veena Dubal, an associate law professor at UC Hastings, who studies gig worker issues, agreed that the practice appears to violate due process.

“The drivers often do not even know when they are ticketed until the amount is subtracted from their wages,” she said in an email. “They have no opportunity to contest it. Some drivers I have talked to say that they believe they were wrongfully ticketed. The airport obviously benefits from this arrangement. They get an influx of revenue from the tickets.”

Uber said it hopes to get the system changed.

“Uber shares the drivers’ concerns regarding the fairness of this process, and we plan to share our view directly with the airport,” spokesman Davis White said. “Drivers deserve a transparent and fair way to resolve citations.”

Lyft covers the full cost of the SFO tickets and then “helps drivers comply with regulations at SFO through written communications and support at driver hubs and on the ground,” spokesman Campbell Matthews said in a statement. “While our approach changes with each airport, our priority has been to ensure all drivers at SFO have the information necessary to best be in compliance with regulations and continue earning at the airport.”

SFO isn’t the only airport with this arrangement. SherpaShare, which helps on-demand drivers track their earnings, surveyed drivers about airport tickets and heard from drivers in Baltimore; Columbus, Ohio; Minneapolis; New York (LaGuardia); Philadelphia; and Phoenix that they’d incurred airport tickets that were deducted from their earnings.

Struggles at Uber

Oakland International Airport fines Uber and Lyft and does not directly fine the drivers, a spokeswoman said.

Surveyed drivers who took a hit on their earnings from tickets said they would have contested the citation if they could, and feel the practice is unjust.

“It seems like the driver should be able to participate in the conversation around any citation, especially one that could potentially cost them a whole day’s pay,” said Jen Israel, a SherpaShare spokeswoman. “I appreciate SFO wanting a swift resolution to issues that clog up airport roadways and pickup points, but they should find a way to hold the company accountable separate from the individual, so they maintain the same rights as the rest of us.”

Another due process issue for drivers is that the airport tickets don’t include any evidence, such as photos.

“When the police give you a ticket, they say, ‘Sign here’ and give you a copy,” said Issam Hazboun of San Bruno. “But the airport, it doesn’t give nothing, no picture or proof.”

Hazboun said he gets new decals from Uber and Lyft every six months because the sun bleaches them out. Still, he’s racked up five or six airport citations for lacking trade dress.

“If you were a customer, would you come to my car without a sticker?” he asked. “No! If a customer doesn’t see a sticker on my car, he won’t come. Those people in the airport, they are just using this to make extra money.”

Likewise Scott Wallace of Los Gatos was cited for lacking a rear placard. But his Honda Odyssey has a standard factory tint on the rear window, which could have made it difficult to see the Uber logo, he said.

And there was a considerable lag time. “I received the notice last month but the ticket was written four months ago,” Wallace said. “It said, you’re out $100, we got a ticket we’re paying for you.”

Meanwhile Ayubi, the San Ramon driver, said he’s looking for other work. Besides the SFO tickets, he’s been getting ones in the city for other issues, like double-parking.

“It’s not worth it anymore,” he said. “I have to put new tires on twice a year, change the oil all the time and other expenses — plus all these tickets.”

Carolyn Said covers the on-demand economy (new marketplaces such as Uber, TaskRabbit and Airbnb that let people rent their time, goods and services), the impacts of automation and AI on labor, and the world of autonomous vehicles. Previously she covered the housing market and foreclosure crisis, winning awards for stories that shed light on the human impact of sweeping economic trends. As a business reporter at The Chronicle since 1997, she also has covered the dot-com rise and fall, the California energy crisis, the corporate malfeasance scandals, and the fallout from economic downturns.